The Shattering of Azeroth

In the frigid wastes of Northrend, the final battle against the merciless Lich King ended in victory for Azeroth's defenders. Upon returning home, veterans of the unforgiving conflict against the Scourge were showered with praise for their valiant sacrifices, while the honorable dead were mourned. Yet as hope flared anew in the wake of the Lich King's fall, Azeroth's native elemental spirits grew confused and erratic, setting off a series of deadly natural disasters. Horde and Alliance leaders scrambled for clues about the troubling state of the world, but nothing could have prepared them for what was to come.

Without warning, the corrupted Dragon Aspect, Deathwing, erupted from the stone heart of Deepholm, the domain of earth within the Elemental Plane. Jagged fissures were torn across the earth, and monstrous waves pummeled coastal regions. From Thousand Needles to the Blasted Lands, the surface of Azeroth was reforged through violent upheavals. Now, the Horde and the Alliance must defend their homes against Deathwing and his minions, burdened by the unsettling fact that the world as they know it has changed... forever.

Azeroth Shattered

Deathwing's return has had an immeasurable impact throughout the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Players will notice drastically altered terrain, thousands of new quests from levels 1-55, and updated level ranges for some zones to improve the questing flow.

New Race/Class Combinations

In the wake of a world on the brink of destruction, members of the Horde and Alliance have taken to new cultures and studies, mastering crafts previously foreign to them. Many existing playable races now have new class combinations. Check the official World of Warcraft: Cataclysm website for a breakdown of the new combinations.

General

The World of Warcraft: Cataclysm cinematic trailer and login screen have been added to the game.

Experience required to gain levels 71 through 80 has been reduced by 20%, which increases leveling rate by 25%.

Many quests in zones on Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have been removed from the game to make way for new adventures. These quests have been automatically removed from players' Quest Logs.

Classes: General

Due to several talent revisions for select classes, druids, paladins, priests, and shaman have had their talent trees reset.

The damage and healing done by players from levels 1-79 has been retuned, with the base points of almost all spells and abilities reduced. This was done to bring combat times at low levels to a more reasonable length. For most abilities that deal weapon damage, the weapon damage percent now rises per level until level 80, and starts at a lower percent.

Pluie guérisseuse, , , now have a diminished effect when healing more than 6 players at once.

Death Knight

Frappe de mort now heals for 25% of damage taken in the last 5 seconds, down from 30%, and will heal for a minimum of 7% of maximum health, down from 10%. The tooltip may not yet be updated to reflect this change.

Robustesse glaciale now provides 20% damage reduction, down from 30% (now 50%, down from 60% when talented), and has a 3-minute cooldown, up from 2 minutes.

Blood

now heals for 10% of maximum health, down from 15%. The tooltip may not yet be updated to reflect this change.

(Cat Form) can now be used even if the druid does not have a primary target selected.

Epines: beginner tooltip revised to no longer imply the spell could be kept up at all times. In addition, Thorns damage has been reduced by 60%.

Balance

PvP set bonus redesigned. While not in an Eclipse state, critical attacks against the druid restore 5 Solar or 7 Lunar energy, whichever is more beneficial. This effect can only occur once every 6 seconds.

Feral

now increases the mana cost of spells on the victim by 5/10% for 10 seconds, down from 15/30%.

now heals for 4%, down from 8%.

Instincts de survie now provides 50% damage reduction, down from 60%, and its cooldown has been lowered from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.

is now a 2-point talent, down from 3. It provides a 20% chance to return 1/2% of the druid's total mana on periodic heals from Fleur de vie or Récupération. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds.

is now a 1-point talent, down from 2. The global cooldown reduction this talent provides to Récupération remains 0.5 seconds.

Mage

Déflagration des Arcanes now increases damage of the next Arcane Blast by 10% per stack, down from 20%, reduces cast time by 0.1 seconds per stack, and increases the mana cost by 150%, down from 175%. In addition, the base cast time of Arcane Blast has been lowered to 2.35 seconds.

Barrage des Arcanes damage has been increased by 5% and its cooldown is now 4 seconds, down from 5 seconds.

: Now has a much higher chance (13/27/40%) of entering a Clearcasting state. This effect cannot occur more than once every 15 seconds. The tooltip still states that there is a 3/6/10% chance, as it averages out to approximately the same chance with the internal cooldown applied.

absorb shield now absorbs 10% of the total amount healed, up from 8%. Each point of Mastery increases the effect by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.

Lumière de l’aube has been redesigned. It no longer has an enforced cooldown, now costs Holy Power instead of mana, and scale in direct proportion to the amount of Holy Power used. In addition it now heals the 5 most injured group targets (including self) in a 30-yard frontal cone.

no longer increases chance to block. Instead, it increases the amount blocked by an additional 10%, for a total of 40% damage blocked.

Bouclier du vertueux: Contribution of attack power halved (now 60% with full Holy Power) and base damage brought up so that a level 85 paladin in Heroic dungeon gear deals the same damage with no , but Vengeance has less impact.

now also has a proc on kill to increase the healing done by the paladin's next by 100/200/300% for 15 seconds, in addition to its current effects.

Tempête divine: This ability has been redesigned. It no longer consumes Holy Power and instead costs 5% of base mana. It shares a cooldown with Frappe du croisé and hits all nearby enemies for 60% weapon damage.

Mot de pouvoir : Barrière has been redesigned. It no longer acts as a shared absorb shield. Instead, all affected friendly targets take 30% reduced damage for the duration of the shield, which is now 10 seconds, down from 25 seconds.

Shadow

: redesigned slightly. The Shadow Orbs continue to increase damage done by Attaque mentale and Pointe mentale and stack up to 3 times, but now when the priest casts Mind Blast or Mind Spike (consuming the orbs), the priest gains a 15-second duration buff (Empowered Shadow), which increases the damage done by all Shadow periodic spells. Empowered Shadow does not stack. Mastery increases the damage bonus of Shadow Orbs and Empowered Shadow by the same amount, 10% with the base 8 Mastery, and an additional 1.25% per Mastery.

Etreinte vampirique healing to the caster has been reduced to 6%, down from 12% (there was a tooltip error which stated that the self-healing amount was 15%). Party members still receive 3% healing.

Bug Fixes

Dark Archangel now correctly increases the damage done of certain abilities by 4%.

Heurt de bouclier: Contribution of attack power reduced to 60%, down from 75%, and base damage brought up so that a level 85 warrior in Heroic dungeon gear deals the same damage with no , but Vengeance has less impact. In addition, Shield Slam no longer generates 30% bonus threat from its damage.

no longer provides 3% damage reduction, but still refreshes Provocation and provides .

Glyphs

Glyphe carbonisé increases the healing received from Bloodthirst by 40%, down from 100%.

Glyphe carbonisé no longer causes targets to flee slowly, but roots them instead.

PvP set bonuses now provide 70 of stats such as Agility, Intellect, and Strength (down from 100) at 2 pieces, and 180 of these stats (down from 300) at 4 pieces.

Professions

Perfect Gem Cutting and Mixology have been removed as trainable skills and are instead passives profession abilities. When players reach the appropriate skill levels, they will start getting bonuses from Mixology (they must know the recipe to gain the benefit) and/or cutting perfect gems (depending on their profession, of course).

Alchemy

Alchemy recipes now require Fiole de cristals. Deathwing broke all the others because he's mean (or because he didn't want alchemists to carry 5 different vials around with them).

Engineering

The Engineering Tinkering enchants will no longer provide their bonus stats, but the activated effects will stack with other enchants. In 4.0.1 the stats were there (but hidden) and are now removed.

Bug Fixes

Several epic gem transmutes that were missing from the trainer have been added back.

Commentaire de Barmazuz

Commentaire de Daveecee

"Divine Bulwark now grants 2.25% less block chance per point of Mastery, up from 2%."

Wot? That doesn't make sense. Should this say "Divine Bulwark now grants 2.25% more block chance per point of Mastery, up from 2%."?

Commentaire de Andersson3

on 2010-11-23T10:16:55-06:00

Damn. Why nerf warriors? :(

Commentaire de firminator

on 2010-11-23T10:17:08-06:00

Well resto shamans got boned. . .

Commentaire de g33ksquared

on 2010-11-23T10:26:05-06:00

I should make a mage. And level my paladin. ^-^

Well they did say that they were going to get healers out of spamming the same 3 spells over and over again. It is most apparent on the druid though...

These changes feel like a nerf to my resto druid, yes, but if it is going to make my gameplay that much more interesting and challenging so be it.

Commentaire de Barmazuz

on 2010-11-23T10:28:50-06:00

Power Word: Barrier has been redesigned. It no longer acts as a shared absorb shield. Instead, all affected friendly targets take 30% reduced damage for the duration of the shield, which is now 10 seconds, down from 25 seconds..

Why, blizz?

Commentaire de TheFern

on 2010-11-23T10:32:53-06:00

I feel the Warlock Pain! <S> Nerf yo! Ouch!

Commentaire de Kammikaze

on 2010-11-23T10:33:26-06:00

Holy warlock nerf batman. And what's with the feral tank nerf, they were already UP.

Commentaire de Buzzkilled

on 2010-11-23T10:33:37-06:00

looking forward to the challenges of healing with my shammy. Look forward to when cata goes live on the 7th.

Commentaire de Edthedead

on 2010-11-23T10:34:45-06:00

Sweet i love it when my warrior is Nerfed"^insert sarcasm here^"

Commentaire de popopaladin3

on 2010-11-23T10:40:38-06:00

They should just delete the whole warrior section and and just put in...

Commentaire de Xhaosrenac

on 2010-11-23T10:46:51-06:00

Curious and curiouser. Healers are hard to come by, people who play the various tanks are hard to come by. Why? Because the majority enjoys killing things. So why punish the few people who are willing to play healers and tanks? Odd. I played a healer for all of Naxx and most of ICC. (Tanked and DPS'd in between) and yet....I don't think I'll ever do those roles again.

Commentaire de mtgeekman

on 2010-11-23T10:56:16-06:00

my poor warlock :(

Commentaire de blahmn

on 2010-11-23T10:56:29-06:00

Wow, 12% nerf to my warlock means... I'll still be highest damage done on most fights. Anyone $%^&*ing about this change needs to spend some more time learning their class; locks were OP.

Now warriors on the other hand, begin the QQ. Anyone still playing a warrior deserves the chance to let it out - I'd be pissed too.

Commentaire de shadowpowerx

on 2010-11-23T10:57:41-06:00

yes ! nice one blizzard , i love how u balance things! REALLY GOOD NEWS! the only think i don't like to much is rebuke don't get more cooldown , like hunters pet habilits , pala has 2 stuns as retri. but warlock and warrior gonna be less facerollers now! I REALLY LOVE THOSE NEWS THANKS!

Commentaire de Junkie55

on 2010-11-23T10:59:54-06:00

Might have been posted before. But you took a Warrior talent ( Executioner) and put in the Rogue changes. :)

Commentaire de loik

on 2010-11-23T10:59:59-06:00

"Divine Bulwark now grants 2.25% less block chance per point of Mastery, up from 2%."

Wot? That doesn't make sense. Should this say "Divine Bulwark now grants 2.25% more block chance per point of Mastery, up from 2%."?